River Kanning
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riverk.bsky.social
River Kanning
@riverk.bsky.social
Those who become jailers are themselves no longer free.
Beginning to understand the impulse to chisel names off of obelisks
December 18, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Reposted by River Kanning
Gift link, probably the funniest thing the Wall Street Journal has done this year.
We Let AI Run Our Office Vending Machine. It Lost Hundreds of Dollars.
An AI agent ran a snack operation in the WSJ newsroom. It gave away a free PlayStation, ordered a live fish—and taught us lessons about the future of AI.
www.wsj.com
December 18, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Wish I’d had this handy infographic back when I taught expository writing
i made a helpful reference
December 18, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Time for the annual angst of “Is my office gift exchange gift suitably bland and acceptable”
December 18, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by River Kanning
Creative brands coming to Bluesky to announce AI shit
December 18, 2025 at 1:22 PM
This, unfortunately, makes a lot of sense. They are ginning up the same tissue-thin rationale the U.S. govt used to send Japanese Americans to internment camps in WW2 — with even less justification
I keep saying this but no one is connecting the dots. The war is to satisfy legal preconditions for mass removal *domestically* of Latinos (i.e., suddenly a lot of people are going to be “Venezuelan” for purposes of removal). This is 100% Stephen Miller…oil claim is to make grandpa go along
There is no national security logic that would impel the US to want to do regime change in Venezuela. It's simply not that important. I'm not even sure wag the dog is the right metaphor for what's happening here. Seems like an insane misallocation of US national security assets and attention.
December 17, 2025 at 3:07 AM
Reposted by River Kanning
while you are making your best-SFF-books of the year lists you COULD, I'm just saying, think about which of those books are relevant to the aims of the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, and which ones you might wanna nominate for the prize when nominations open in March

just saying
Ursula K. Le Guin — The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction
www.ursulakleguin.com
December 11, 2025 at 3:04 PM
This is a fantastic analysis. “If I’ve gone into slightly tortured detail to explain how TV acting and writing work, it’s because I, as a scholar of boning, know how hard it is to produce sex scenes that convey story and character while also being hot.”
December 10, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by River Kanning
Currently reading Moby-Dick by Herman Melville for the first time. Killer line from Chapter 9: The Sermon that still resonates today: "In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers."
December 10, 2025 at 1:56 PM
The Onion is undefeated
December 9, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Reposted by River Kanning
The latest edition of my newsletter includes must-reads, organizing resources, year-end reflections, and a writing exercise for anyone trying to stay whole and take action in 2026.
Must-Reads and Some Notes on Taking Action and Staying Whole in 2026
As we close out a year of crisis and courage, I’m thinking about what sustains us — and what comes next.
organizingmythoughts.org
December 7, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Hit ‘em in their wallet, it’s what corporations have instead of hearts
We have to use every tool available to us - including our dollars. This Black Friday and weekend @blackvotersmatterfund.org asks you to join “We Ain’t Buyin’ It!” to send a message to Trump’s corporate enablers. Learn more about the companies targeted in this campaign here: weaintbuyingit.com
November 28, 2025 at 5:45 PM
saving this for Booksmas aka Cozyfest, where my family exchanges gifts of books and socks and hangs around reading and drinking hot cocoa on 12/24
November 26, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Supporting my hypothesis that Fae behavior/traits in folklore are all modeled after neurodivergent people, exhibit #2,351
The Daily Tism Patreon is where I sacrifice myself on the altar of dignity for your reading pleasure: www.patreon.com/posts/143566...
November 26, 2025 at 3:10 PM
As long as I’ve been imprisoned in an ornate lacquered wardrobe by an evil clockwork automaton, I’ll be golden
November 25, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Autocorrect just changed grandparenting to grandpa renting, and I don’t know what to do with this information, so I’m sharing it with you
November 24, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Reposted by River Kanning
8675309 is prime, and so is 8675311, so if you ever need a middlin'-large pair of adjacent primes to test your cryptographic suite, all you need is a 1980s earworm and a +2 and you're all set.
Man, everything is so bleak, anyone got a fun fact or little bit of trivia they want to share
November 21, 2025 at 3:28 AM
Reposted by River Kanning
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."

https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 20, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by River Kanning
Earlier today, I was notified that someone was at my door.

This is who it was:
November 21, 2025 at 12:59 AM
Reposted by River Kanning
The Digital Ghosts of Hargrave House — Part Two
By E.M. Morrissey
dlvr.it
November 17, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by River Kanning
Happy New Story Sunday! Desperately fighting back the inexorable tide of Christmas Stuff, we have a proper spooooky story for you this week by the fabulous fabulist E.M. Morrissey. Stay scary out there 🖤
The Digital Ghosts of Hargrave House — Part One
By E.M. Morrissey
dailytomorrow.substack.com
November 16, 2025 at 6:53 PM
A stroll through the gloaming
November 16, 2025 at 5:11 PM
The perfect cookbook author’s name does not exis—
November 5, 2025 at 1:16 AM
Reposted by River Kanning
Spotify customer service is immediately ending conversations if you ask about them airing ICE advertisements on the platform.

Cancel your Spotify subscription.
#BoycottSpotify
October 23, 2025 at 8:06 PM